Donna

18

I SIGH HEAVILY, my body weighed down. My eyes flutter open, and endless pools of brown meet my gaze. Her soft hand strokes my cheek, finger run through my hair.

There's a small smile, a nostalgic one. I make no movements, no sound, trying to still as much as possible. I don't want to end this moment.

Chaos is on the fringes of this moment and I don't want to deal with it. Not yet. Roksana's long dark hair falls just so, the left part of her shielded from outside gazes.

The silence wakes me. The stillness jolts me back to reality. Cold seeps into my bones, reminding me.

Well f**k me sideways. Guess what day it is?

But I don't ask, don't tell, don't whisper, f**k, I don't even mentally whisper it.

Somewhere inside me the irrational part of me, clings to the irrational part of her. It defies logic.

Tells me somehow, I'm wrong. Somehow she won't notice. Somehow she'll forget.

But Vitya Volkov is a logical mother fucker by nature. He's a predator, and to catch prey you must logical.

The real me, untouched by her, knows that habits don't change so easily. She never forgets anything, she won't conveniently forget now.

But that part is small now, she has reached the corners of my soul, not to sound dramatic. There is hardly some part of me she has not tampered with, that I have not given her.

I'm not me.

Not really.

I'm me AR.

After Roksana.

Rays of sunshine invade the room, setting flame to the darkness I surrounded myself in. She doesn't move, and neither do I.

“Caro, you know I don't love you.”

“I know.”

And I do. I really do.

“But the f****d you part of me needs you.”

“I know.”

“I have lived Vitya.”

“I know.”

“I have died Vitya.”

“I know.”

“Then you know how often I go without what I need.”

A flutter of coldness carries the silent whisper.

I know.

I'VE SAID GOOD-BYES. Sent a letter to my parents, telling them what I did. Why.

I couldn't face them. Couldn't see the heartbreak, the hatred.

I met with Yuri, put him in charge. Told him I believe in him. That I am counting on him. It is only now, when I have to say goodbye, do I realize, I have nothing to say goodbye to.

My money, my cars, the women who I don't know, don't care to. Faceless, nameless. They don't matter to me, and they don't mind.

I have my Mother, Father. Sisters, except one. My best friend. And my men. That's it. Thirty two years old, and I have nothing of my own.

No family. No children.

I sorely regret the choices I made, but sorely or pleasantly, it doesn't matter. Regret does nothing.

Christmas is coming to a close. I have a gift waiting for me. The last I will ever get. I have given everyone I know a gift, the last they will ever receive from me.

I watch the clouds through my window, counting the minutes, seconds. Peace and hysteria fight for dominance, but in the end a sort of numbness wins.

Somehow it's worse, than either of them.

Slowly, the sun begins sinking, sending bitter cold, once filled by the sun's warmth, full force.

She hates the cold.

It's time. 4:00PM.

It's time to repeat history and do the same s**t. I take fifty, including Yuri, but they're not armed this time.

I assume she'll take seventy.

We trudge to no man's land, where no man lives, but many men die.

There's a fresh blanket of snow on the ground, still pristine and white. Pure. Blood will be spilled unfortunately, and that perfection will be marred.

We arrive, and her army is waiting but not her. For some reason, my head spews a poem I learned decades ago by Robert Frost.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

I am sighing ages and ages hence, I did take the road less traveled by, found out why many people don't use it.

That has made all the difference.

The wind howls and sends me her scent. She's here. Snipers on the roof. I walk to her in the peace of bitter whirling winds. She walks to me.

Bullets don't whiz by. Nothing. Those men have left. That is their orders. It's just her and I now, standing, little space between us, but in that little space, eons of chaos.

She closes it.

“I'm gonna f*****g kill you,” She whispers.

“I know Roksana.”

I point my gun at her, she doesn't glance at it. Doesn't have to. I empty the chamber, scatter the bullets throw the gun.

I look at her. Just this morning I held her. Just this morning she smiled so softly, sweetly. Just this morning...

Morning is over. Afternoon is approaching and evening is soon after.

The day is drawing to a close.

But my eyes, focus on hers. Pools of chocolate that I drown myself in.

She points her gun at me.

Fires. Flames spread throughout my body licking at my fingertips and I know she didn't miss the mark.

I fall like a gentle giant, cold enveloping me.

“I'm sorry,” She whispers, hands stroking my face. She cries for me, her tears falling into my face like raindrops of despair.

Death makes me poetic. Figured.

“I loved you. We loved each other,” We did, I know. “It just wasn't right. Not the right type of love.”

She is still here, she shouldn't be.

“я люблю тебя.” it hurts to breathe burns to talk but I say it.

“I-I love you, Amanda.”

“My name is Roksana to you, it always has been,” tears stream down her beautiful face.

I try to smile, but it hurts.

“Why did you this?!” Roksana, my Roksana she screaming at me. “Why did you start this Vitya?!”

I start slipping, and my mind scrambling desperately to cling to the cliff, to life. All I see is her.

“Your legacy goes on. My gift to you. Our child will know you are a good man.”

I smile, and let go.

Mission accomplished.

Two people on the same side of the highway, destined for murder.

I killed myself. In the end, I killed myself. I could've saved myself, could've made different choices..

Could've took the other road.

It didn't have to this way. But it did.